Harper facing some of the toughest challenges of his career as CPC convention starts

Prime Minister Stephen Harper responds to a question during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Wednesday, Oct. 30. CP/Sean Kilpatrick

CALGARY – It is designed to be a celebration of the Conservative government’s accomplishments over the past eight years and a chance to debate policies that will help frame the party’s platform heading into the next election.

However, as Prime Minister Stephen Harper prepares for this week’s meeting of Conservative party faithful in his home town of Calgary, he is facing some of the toughest challenges in his political career.

Public opinion polls show his party and his personal popularity have been slipping. An Ekos poll conducted Oct. 26-29, put the Conservatives at 26.4 per cent, a sharp drop from the 39.6 per cent vote that won them a majority in 2011. The poll found 63 per cent of Canadians felt the government was going in the wrong direction and 69 per cent disapproved of the way Harper is handling his job.

Three of Harper’s handpicked senators – Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau are rocking his government with bombshell accusations and revelations of back-room dealings and betrayal in a bid to block a Conservative move to suspend them from the Senate until the next election and strip them of their pay and benefits.

This week Harper lashed out at Nigel Wright, the man who put his lucrative Bay Street career on hold to head Harper’s PMO, saying Wright had misled him on the details of the deal he negotiated with Duffy to pay back $90,000 in housing allowances and that Wright didn’t resign — has Harper has previously claimed — but was “dismissed.”

Under relentless questioning by NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair, Harper has insisted that Wright acted alone and Harper has defended the decision to use Conservative party funds to pay Duffy’s legal tab, saying all parties at times pay legal bills for members of their caucuses. However, questions remain, including who exactly authorized the $13,560 cheque to Duffy’s lawyer.

The scandal and the PMO’s handling of it has created a rift in the Conservative party’s caucus and despite attempts by the Conservatives to change the channel, the scandal has overshadowed the government’s throne speech and the announcement an agreement in principle on a historic free trade deal with Europe.

Longtime party insiders say they believe Harper still enjoys the support of Conservative party faithful. Nor do the party’s bylaws provide for a leadership review at this convention.

They agree that this convention — particularly Friday’s keynote speech — could be a chance for Harper to solidify his support among Conservatives and to try to refocus attention on his government’s accomplishments.

Tim Powers, vice-chairman of Summa Strategies and a longtime Conservative strategist said the speech will be an important one for Harper. While there is no threat to Harper’s leadership, Powers said Harper will have to calm supporters and convince them they are on the right course even if they face some turbulence.

“He’s not Obama. You’re not going to get the laying on of hands and the emotional oratory — that’s not Stephen Harper. But his strength is his certitude of leadership and I think he will look to remind people of that.”

Geoff Norquay, a principal at Earnscliffe Strategy Group who has worked in top roles in the Conservative party and as an aide to former Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, says don’t expect Harper to change the narrative he has stuck to during question period.

“As we look ahead to the convention, I think we will see the prime minister sticking to that communications narrative because he recognizes that not only within his party but also within the Canadian public there is a view that these senators have played fast and loose with the rules and that they need to be punished for that.”

“I think that will be his bottom line in speaking to the convention this week.”

Resolutions to watch

Among the dozens of resolutions that have made it all the way to the convention, two to watch will be familiar to veteran Conservative convention goers – resolutions designed to move the party towards a one member one vote system for choosing leaders or one in which the weight of a riding is influenced by the number of members it counts.

The issue was part of the negotiations when the Progressive Conservative Party merged with the Canadian Alliance/Reform parties and while some had thought it resolved, it regularly returns at party policy conventions.

However, Justice Minister Peter MacKay has warned that the resolutions would result in less weight for Eastern Canadian ridings and passing the resolutions would hurt the party’s unity.

In June, before the convention was postponed after devastating floods hit Calgary, MacKay told the National Post he would consider leaving the Conservative party if it went to a one member, one vote leadership format.

Cabinet minister Maxime Bernier’s riding of Beauce has put forward a resolution that calls for balanced budget legislation that would require the federal government to balance its budget and then freeze it at $300 billion a year until 2020/21.

A number of resolutions would hammer labor unions such as one calling for the government to prevent mandatory dues collected by unions from being used to fund non-workplace related political causes.
Another resolution says the Conservative party believes that “mandatory union membership and forced financial contributions as a condition of employment limit the economic freedom of Canadians and stifle economic growth.”

While resolutions are not binding on the government, they have been known to lead to legislation.

But in the end, the most concrete accomplishment of this convention could be for Harper to change the channel, reinforce his support among delegates and quell any doubts that some of his grass roots supporters may have following the fallout from the Senate spending scandal.

If he can’t manage that, it may be someone else delivering the leaders’ keynote speech when Conservatives gather for their next policy convention.